


but it's your heart of gold I love the best

by philthestone



Series: nursery 'verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, au for the eu, nursery 'verse, yay for philosophical rambling and meta disguised as fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows that The Story starts with a little slave boy from the desert falling in love with a queen. But then, as Jaina so rightfully points out, he didn't really know how to love, did he?</p><p>(AU for the EU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	but it's your heart of gold I love the best

**Author's Note:**

> a few things:  
> 1) I really really really really miss my Mom. If you couldn't tell.  
> 2) I decided to make "switch on the sky" into an actual universe that diverges from EU canon because I love these characters but quite frankly the EU is trash mostly and YOU KNOW ME, I need to rectify all tragic story lines with family fluff alternatives.  
> 3) this is hugely inspired by irnan's swallows and amazons universe, including references to The Story (though, I kinda latched on to that ball and rolled with it because I LOVE) and the idea that the Fam Jam moves to Yavin. This is a disclaimer - all rights go to her for that inspiration. Bless her writing, honestly.  
> 4) since love and compassion is a HUGE part of the sw essence, and Luke's entire arc is dependent on that, AND I wanted to do a bit on Leia and Jaina's relationship, this happened.
> 
> (An aside - I switched the fic title so it's different from the original one that I'd posted on tumblr, because I realized that THIS title actually goes better with this fic and the title this one had originally goes better with its companion fic. But anyway, title from Princess Diaries. Yes, I am that person.)
> 
> Reviews are Mom Hugs when you most need them

Mom braids her hair in the deserted bedroom four hours after they unanimously declare breakfast a lost cause, just an hour before the reception’s supposed to start. For once, Jaina’s fancy dress – the yellow one, with the nice ribbons that tie in the back – isn’t anywhere in the vicinity of uncomfortable, and the braids not at all tight, and she sits comfortably on the edge of the vanity stool while her mother twists her short hair together and fits it into place in the back.

“It’s not long enough to look like yours,” says Jaina after a moment, the tiniest bit of the excitement that’s been steadily growing all week deflating out of her chest. Mom grins and places a kiss on Jaina’s temple.

“And whose fault is that, baby girl?”

“Short hair’s _easier_ ,” Jaina defends herself, jutting her chin out in the same way she’s seen her mother do countless times before. Mom twists the final bit of hair into place and slips one of the discarded Jillie flowers lying around in the apartment into the pin at the back. (Jacen asks Uncle Luke, shortly after breakfast is abandoned, why there are _so many_ flowers everywhere. Uncle Luke just shrugs in that _way_ of his and says that they smell nice. And look nice. And besides which, they’re compensation for not being able to do the ceremony on Yavin. Jaina and Jacen and Anakin hold a meeting, a half hour later, behind the big living room couch, to determine what to do about the flowers strewn across the apartment. It’s decided, formally, that they’re actually quite nice. And that they’ll go awfully well with Aunt Mara’s red hair.)

“There,” declares Mom. “All done.”

Jaina stays seated and watches in the mirror as her mother puts down the hairbrush and picks up her own clothes from the bed, shrugging off her dressing gown for the first time since early that morning (“it’s not _my_ special day,” Mom says with a teasing grin when Aunt Mara, arriving an hour after their attempt at breakfast and holding her wedding robes with a grumpy look on her face, asks why _she_ gets to parade around the house in her dressing gown, still, while Aunt Mara herself has to suffer heels) and picking up the soft fabric with her free hand.

“Mom,” starts Jaina, unsure as to how to voice her thoughts. Excitement is one thing, but to be _really sure of something_ – well, Jaina _is_ the eldest, after all, and she has to make sure. “Uncle Luke’s gonna be real happy, isn’t he.”

“Uncle Luke’s already very happy,” Mom tells Jaina with a small smile, pushing her long braid over her shoulder and slipping into the gown.

Jaina nods, picking an abandoned silver ring from off the dressing table and turning it over in her hands. “Because he said – a little bit ago. Like, last year. That the old Jedi, they weren’t supposed to love people.”

Mom pauses in clasping the back of her dress and walks over to where Jaina’s sitting. Jaina watches as her mother leans against the vanity, and picks up the discarded brush, plucking out a few of Jaina’s yanked hairs from the bristles.

“Hmm,” she agrees. Jaina bites at her lip, and fiddles with the ring in her hand.

“I don’t understand,” blurts Jaina, suddenly. “If we didn’t love people – like, if I didn’t have – Jasa, or Nik, of if Dad didn’t give me hugs all the time and you – what would be the point?”

There’s a small twinkle in Mom’s eye – the one she always gets when she’s about to make Jaina feel better about something, Jaina can tell. “I’m sure that’s not all Uncle Luke has said.”

“No,” admits Jaina. “He’s always said that love and compassion are the _most_ important things we can have.”

Mom places the brush down again and smiles encouragingly. “What do _you_ think, Jaya?”

Jaina swings her legs.

(And thinks about how rotten it would be if Jasa and Nik weren’t there with her – if Mom and Dad couldn’t drop kisses on her forehead, or brush her hair away from her forehead – or if the way Uncle Luke looked at Aunt Mara was a bad thing.)

“I think he’s right,” says Jaina finally. “But I think it’s more than just loving people. Because Grandfather loved people once, didn’t he?”

Mom hesitates, like she always does when the topic of Grandfather is brought up. Lately, Jaina’s noticed, she hasn’t been hesitating as much. But it’s still there.

Then she nods, once, and finally clasps the back of her dress properly, kneels down so that she’s face to face with Jaina.

“I think my little girl’s got a solid head on her shoulders, that’s what I think.”

Jaina grins, because Mom rarely ever praises them so freely. When she does, it makes Jaina feel like her chest’s about to burst with a warm feeling that she thinks might be the Force and might just be _Mom_ and is probably one of the nicest things in the galaxy. She can feel Mom's sense reaching out to her, warm and happy, and she leans her head forward when Mom slips her larger hands over Jaina’s.

“You’ve got to trust the Force too, though,” says Mom. “You can’t just love people.”

“But Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara trust the Force.”

“They do,” says Mom, one eyebrow raising in Jaina’s peripheral vision. “But trusting the Force and not putting in any effort yourself isn’t going to get your blaster charged, is it?”

“Um,” says Jaina, frowning and trying not to kick her legs, ‘cause Mom’s right there and then her nice dress would have shoe prints on it. “Well. If you love Dad, but you’re not happy about it, that’d be pretty lousy, I think.”

“Sometimes I’m not happy about it,” says Mom seriously, and Jaina’s eyes widen. “Sometimes loving people is terribly hard. But it’s how you deal with the hard stuff that makes the difference.”

“Like how in the Story the dark knight didn’t trust anyone he loved. So all he did was hurt them back, when he felt hurt,” says Jaina after a moment, feeling very grown up.

“Mm,” agrees Mom, pulling her forehead away only just enough so that she can look Jaina in the eye. Jaina holds her breath (and thanks her lucky stars again that they moved to Yavin, that Mom can have these talks with her now, that sometimes she even gets to sip on the (admittedly awful, but it’s the _principle_ of the thing) caf in Dad’s appropriated old mug that Mom always has mostly-full).

“He didn’t know how to love,” says Jaina quietly. “Did he?”

“No,” agrees Mom, her Force presence flickering, all soft yellow light and brilliant warmth that is, always will be, _Mom_.

“But Uncle Luke knows how to love, right?”

Mom laughs, and finally pulls away completely, presses a kiss to Jaina’s forehead as she goes. “He’s better than most, that’s for sure.”

Jaina thinks about how even when Jasa’s at his most infuriating, not paying any attention to her and getting mudflies in the blankets – or when she and Mom get into arguments and Jaina wants to curl up into a little ball and yell at the wall because Mom’s being so – not – _nice_ , and Jaina thinks that everything’s so _unfair_ –

Just because they do lousy things, Jaina thinks, it doesn’t mean that they can’t still be good the next day.

“Aunt Mara makes him smile like _anything_ ,” decides Jaina, causing Mom to stop in the act of rebraiding her own hair and smile, bright and huge, with her tongue poking between her teeth, how it always does when she’s really happy.

“I’m glad I’ve got you looking out for him,” Mom tells her in a conspiratorial whisper, like it's _their secret_ , pinning her braid into place at the back of her head and reaching for a pair of earrings on the vanity. “It helps make my job easy.”

Jaina grins, face splitting in two. Jacen’s in the other room with Dad complaining about his dress pants and wondering if there’s going to be a fish pond at the reception and Nik’s running around in Aunt Mara’s room in his underwear and putting together a mismatched bouquet of Jillie flowers that Jaina’s certain Aunt Mara will stubbornly insist on using, instead of the one she’s already prepared.

And Jaina’s watching her mother slip in her small golden earrings and beam with pride at Jaina’s reflection in the vanity mirror, and _Uncle Luke’s getting married_ and Jaina thinks that she loves her family a whole, awful lot.


End file.
